The U.S. healthcare industry is a $2T economy with the rate of growth far exceeding that of general inflation. With the aging global population, the current healthcare crisis is expected to worsen, threatening the health of the global economy. The existing healthcare ecosystem is zero-sum. The recent pay-for-performance (P4P) experiment by the National Health Services in the United Kingdom resulted in mixed outcomes with incentive-based payments far exceeding the budget with uncertain improvements in patient health. On the other hand, a recent study on the sophistication of healthcare consumers reveals that there is little correlation between consumers' perception of care and the actual quality of healthcare delivered as measured by RAND's 236 quality indicators. Furthermore, given the high churn rate and the propensity of employers to seek the lowest-cost health plan, payers are motivated to focus primarily on reducing short-term cost and carving out the cream-of-the-crop population, resulting in perverse benefit design.
In order to control the cost of healthcare, it is important to engage the insured individuals themselves. In general, as an individual becomes more cognizant about a healthy life style, the more likely the individual will live a life style that is more conducive to the individual's health.
Healthcare and fun typically do not go together. A prior art health-simulation model estimates one's probability of developing a chronic disease in the future based on multiple parameters encompassing clinical data, disease markers, and lifestyle. While adequate for scientific research, it is not a fun way to engage consumers by threatening them with statistical jargons, such as “Your risk for diabetes is 5.2 times higher because your BMI puts you in the highest 5 percentile.”
A prior art Web-based health-risk assessment (HRA) asks a large number of questions to calculate one's real age, which may be different from the actual chronological age depending on her health habits and existing disease conditions. The idea is that the more healthy habits one has, the younger one is in comparison to one's actual earth age. Unfortunately, consumers bemoan the fact that the guidelines are written for the masses and that what may be OK for the masses is not good for certain individuals. One participant commented: “I found many interesting things in this book that is written for the masses. However, like exercising, everyone needs to decide or get a professionals opinion about what is good for them as an individual. I had followed the recommendations of the book for the last 9 months to a tee besides going to the website to get my “Realage” down. I just experienced a kidney stone that needed to be removed. For anyone that has been through a stone ordeal knows that it is equal in pain to childbirth or more so according to my urologist. A leading contributor of my stone was the increased intake of calcium, vitamin D, and Vitamin C that I took based on the recommendations of this book. Were there other factors? Probably. However, what is good for one person may not be good for all. So proceed with caution. Again, the book did enlighten me in many areas.”
A prior art Web-based questionnaire that calculates one's risk of developing several chronic diseases in the future based on participant-provided information on previous diagnoses, lifestyle, behavior, family disease history, and physiological data. Unfortunately, these programs are geared towards collecting information from consumers, not engaging them in an interactive game that promotes health in a fun way.
A prior art fitness and wellness offering includes a shoe sensor, which is essentially a wireless pedometer that works seamlessly with iPod Nano™. While the consumer is running, the shoe sensor transmits data to a wireless receiver attached to the iPod Nano, which then calculates time elapsed, distance traveled, and speed, which can be recited to the consumer regularly or on demand. When the participant (user) connects the iPod™ to iTunesSM for synchronization, the stored data in the iPod is automatically uploaded to a Web portal, where the consumer can check his progress against his goals and compare his performance with those of the global pool of runners. Every time the consumer sets a new record in speed or endurance, a celebrity's recorded voice (for example, Lance Armstrong) congratulates him as an extra dose of positive reinforcement. The Web portal also has a community site, where people can sign up other members for fitness challenge. While this approach is a very good start, supported activities are limited to running, and the level of consumer understanding and solution tailoring is rather weak.
Another prior art offering includes a wearable sensor (armband) that measures arm movements through a 2-axis accelerometer, skin temperature, heat flux, and galvanic skin response to compute caloric expenditure over time. Using annotated life-activity data matched to pre-recorded caloric expenditure data, a life-activity recognition algorithm differentiates low-energy states (couch potato) from high-energy activities. The participant has an option of journaling food entry so that she can keep track of daily caloric surplus or deficit.
A prior art wellness program rewards healthy behaviors with health miles (similar to frequent-flyer miles) that can be redeemed for merchandise from participating merchants, e.g., a pedometer, or a gym-membership discount. Examples of healthy behaviors encompass checking biometric signals at a kiosk located at various health clubs, pedometer readings, and filling out online health questionnaire.
Another prior art offering uses a GPS-enabled cellphone to monitor one's fitness activities, consisting of primarily running. An application in cellphone records location over time to compute distance, duration, speed, and calories expended using height and weight information entered by the participant during registration. The participant can create and share blogging with other running enthusiasts. They can also publish their favorite workout routes, hoping to meet new friends.
The above prior art offerings have the following common attributes:                Sensor and/or self-reported data        Limited analytics and data visualization        Limited interaction with other participants        Geared to hard-core health enthusiasts        Not much entertainment value to the general public with different needs        
Social networking is another avenue that can draw together consumers who share common interests. A prior art social networking system works by having participants create their profiles and build their social networks by similarity matching and invitation to join via email. However, while useful for developing personal relationships through social networks, current social networking sites offer mostly entertainment services having little to do with improving one's health. A prior art alpha site caters to the health conscious by having them share their experiences in healthy eating, exercise alternatives, and fitness goals, such as running a marathon. Unfortunately, the site to have lost traction among health and wellness enthusiasts because of poor consumer experience. Furthermore, most of the information can be found easily through yellow pages and search engines.
Massively multi-player role-playing online (MMPRPO) games often appeal to consumers by letting each consumer (1) create an avatar of his fantasy, (2) have fun in exploring new environments and conquering new challenges through judicious social networking and opportunistic thinking, and (3) advance the skill levels and social status each time he completes tasks (defeating or slaying monsters) as a form of continuous positive reinforcement. Many of these games may be so addictive that some spend many hours playing the game to improve the status and trade highest-class avatars to the highest bidders on eBay. Although fun, the addictive nature coupled with the sedentary playing style may even wreak havoc with one's health. Furthermore, many regard playing the game as a second job and thus no longer a fun activity.
Besides MMPRPO, a prior art game encourages physical actions during gaming. The game uses a remote controller with accelerometers and infrared detectors to detect its position in the three-dimensional coordinate space. The controller communicates to the game console via Bluetooth and this configuration allows the participant to play the game using both physical movements and buttons on the remote controller, thus embedding physical activity into a gaming experience.
The above prior art examples illustrate the strong market need to incorporate fun and excitement into gaming that promotes health and wellness to participants.